The Morning After: Virgin Galactic goes to space

What'd you do this week? If it didn't involve a historic trip into space then Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic have you beat. Other out-of-reach experiences include hopping behind the wheel of McLaren's 720S and taking a selfie on Mars, but we can all share the season-two trailer of Star Trek Discovery.

SpaceShipTwo has reached space after months of testing, flying to an altitude of 271,268 feet before returning to Earth. The stay was brief (SST fired its rocket for all of a minute), but it was enough to both verify the spacecraft as well as conduct four NASA-backed scientific experiments that studied the effects of microgravity and devices that could handle life support and counteract vibration.

At $288,000, the McLaren 720S is out of the reach of pretty much everyone. For those lucky enough to have a chance to get behind the wheel, it's an absolute blast even when it's constrained by the realities of city driving. That's thanks to an active suspension system developed at Cambridge University -- and whatever those nerds were doing, worked.

Next time you can't find the perfect angle for your selfie, just thank the universe you're not NASA's InSight lander. The spacecraft had to take 11 images with a camera attached to its robotic arm and then stitch them together to create its first self portrait.

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